Beer Trader Feedback: Sneak Peek (Part 1)

StaffModeratorSite EditorFest CrewSubscriberBeer Trader

Beer Trading has been a part of BeerAdvocate since our first forums back in the late 90s. Though it's evolved and become extremely popular, here at BA it's always lacked a critical feature to help traders better qualify other traders and reward those who truly embrace the camaraderie and culture of beer trading: a feedback system.

We've also promised a feedback system in the past, but never delivered. Combine this with the Bros' notorious iron fists of moderation and ... well let's just say we've felt your frustration.

Today we begin to own up to our promise, and make some changes in how we communicate what's going on here at BA.

For the last couple of weeks Jason, Mike and I have bounced concepts around and a few days ago I began development. Much progress has been made and I'm excited to release some screen shots of the work in progress; subject to change; see the thumbnails at the bottom of the post for large views.

Feedback View
The default view you'll see when looking at another member's beer trading history. It's simple and clean, with beer trader stats and a new beer trade form in the sidebar.
Traders will receive a rating (and text-based feedback) for each trade, which we'll track along with number of trades and points; see below. These stats can be extended and used throughout the site in endless ways.

Queue View
In this view you'll be able to see trades you initiated as well as those initiated by others. Based on the status of a trade, the queue will prompt you to take action; accept, deny or leave feedback.How It Works
We wanted to keep the system simple, but useful.

While this can certainly be used to capture feedback for past trades, we'll be encouraging all members to not ship a trade until both parties have accepted the trade via the new beer trader feedback system.

Once both parties accept, each will be able to leave the other trade partner feedback.

Once both parties leave feedback the trade will be deemed complete, feedback will be published and points awarded. (How this works may change as one trading partner might not leave feedback.)

If a trade request is denied, the trade is cancelled; we'll track these too, just in case there's a pattern of abuse.

The feedback system will be trusted based. Abuse won't be tolerated, but honest and constructive feedback will be encouraged.

Beer Trade Points
Each successful trade may yield points. We're not sure if these will apply to Beer Karma yet, but we're exploring ways to use points. In development we're using:

Positive = 2

Neutral = 1

Negative = 0

When Will This Launch?
We're pretty busy with American Craft Beer Fest and the next issue of BeerAdvocate magazine on the way, but we're committed to release something soon. We'll keep everyone posted.

Also Under Development
We're also exploring these other beer trading related items. Some will launch prior to the site redesign, while others will occur during or after it.

Main Beer Trading page; lists, links to help pages and forums, etc.

Top & Bad Trader lists.

Toggles for Wants/Gots that will allow members to decide which beers are up for trade, which are not and which ones rest in their beer cellars; with notes.

looks very nice. One thing I am curious about (not that I think much can be done about it) is will Positive be the normal, and Neutral never be used or viewed as an insult? I hope this isn't the case and majority of trades are marked as Neutral and only those going way above and beyond getting Positive.

Beer Trader

StaffModeratorSite EditorFest CrewSubscriberBeer Trader

looks very nice. One thing I am curious about (not that I think much can be done about it) is will Positive be the normal, and Neutral never be used or viewed as an insult? I hope this isn't the case and majority of trades are marked as Neutral and only those going way above and beyond getting Positive.

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Good question. We're currently using positive, neutral and negative in development, but did consider:

Good question. We're currently using positive, neutral and negative in development, but did consider:

Awesome (above expectations) = 2 points

Good (the norm, as expected) = 1 point

Bad (below expectations) = 0 points

How's that?

(Original post has been updated to reflect this.)

Click to expand...

I have no problem with the separation of awesome and good, but as nanobrew pointed out, it's hard to predict how the crowd will actually use the two.

I think realistically what is going to happen is "total points" are going to matter less than the ratio of awesome/good to bad. Much like Ebay, you want to see somebody at 99% good/awesome, and then you're going to want to read about that one "bad" in depth, if it exists.

Beer Trader

Any way to track/quantify the amount of time it takes for a trade to complete? Not sure if it would directly affect the rating, but I'd love a graphical representation (timeline?) of how long it takes for both sides to get their trades delivered, compared to other trades. Maybe points are awarded for timely completion?

StaffModeratorSite EditorFest CrewSubscriberBeer Trader

Any way to track/quantify the amount of time it takes for a trade to complete?

Click to expand...

Currently we're tracking 3 dates: the date the trade was initiated, and the date feedback was given for each trader; what we'll consider a completed trade for now.

We'd have to adjust things if we wanted to add delivery dates, at which point ... hell, we might as well add received dates and a field for tracking numbers. Of course we'd have to think about all of this a bit more and include it in a future update.

Beer Trader

I think the layout is great! I think the idea is great! Glad to see this coming.

Looks like the only sticking point is going to be how to assign feedback. Looks like there are going to be views on this all over the place. And here's mine.

I think feedback should be simple. When it gets too complicated and you have to spend more time explaining how it works it needs to change.

So, I think there should be no more than 2 or 3 areas to rate the trade. Personally, I'd like to just see:

Completed
Not Completed

When I make a trade I either do it or I don't. Simple enough and lets others know if I complete my trades or not.

Adding a third dimension to me would look like this:

Completed
Completed with complications
Not Completed

Again, pretty self explanatory.

Only issue I would have with Awesome and Good is the subjective nature of it. I send what I think is an awesome box to someone and they give me a Good rating. I don't think trading should be defined that way.

You either complete the agreed trade or you don't. I'd put a rating system in place that way.

Beer Trader

Currently we're tracking 3 dates: the date the trade was initiated, and the date feedback was given for each trader; what we'll consider a completed trade for now.

We'd have to adjust things if we wanted to add delivery dates, at which point ... hell, we might as well add received dates and a field for tracking numbers. Of course we'd have to think about all of this a bit more and include it in a future update.

Click to expand...

I'm thinking of ways that might assist this situation: my trading partner wants something I have; on their side they're going to "pick up next time they're at the brewery/bottle shop." Which is totally fine, unless that time stretches out into weeks, then maybe months. So, maybe what could happen is if a trade is agreed upon, and one side is taking a long time to ship, they get an automatically generated reminder note based on the non-complete status of the trade? Just spitballing here . . .

Beer Trader

I think the layout is great! I think the idea is great! Glad to see this coming.

Looks like the only sticking point is going to be how to assign feedback. Looks like there are going to be views on this all over the place. And here's mine.

I think feedback should be simple. When it gets too complicated and you have to spend more time explaining how it works it needs to change.

So, I think there should be no more than 2 or 3 areas to rate the trade. Personally, I'd like to just see:

Completed
Not Completed

When I make a trade I either do it or I don't. Simple enough and lets others know if I complete my trades or not.

Adding a third dimension to me would look like this:

Completed
Completed with complications
Not Completed

Again, pretty self explanatory.

Only issue I would have with Awesome and Good is the subjective nature of it. I send what I think is an awesome box to someone and they give me a Good rating. I don't think trading should be defined that way.

You either complete the agreed trade or you don't. I'd put a rating system in place that way.

Click to expand...

Per my other posts, it's not just completing or not, but how timely. If I see someone regularly takes more than a month to complete a trade, it's going to help me set expectations.

Beer Trader

Awesome
Good
Bad

All work as long as they are clearly defined. Problems will come up when I send 2 different traders the same box (let's say 2 agreed upon beers and 2 extras off their want list or release only beer extras). One rates me awesome. The other rates me good. Both trades were completed in a reasonable amount of time.

Why was one awesome and the other good? What one person feels was above and beyond someone else felt it was just good. How are these going to be defined (ie. awesome trade means you got want list extras and good means you got average extras). Or awesome means you just gave extras and good means you didn't give extras but sent the agreed upon beers.

I could keep giving more scenarios. Leaving up to each trader without clearly defined expectations of what is awesome and what is average may create issues.

StaffModeratorSite EditorFest CrewSubscriberBeer Trader

Only issue I would have with Awesome and Good is the subjective nature of it. I send what I think is an awesome box to someone and they give me a Good rating. I don't think trading should be defined that way.

You either complete the agreed trade or you don't. I'd put a rating system in place that way.

Click to expand...

Addressing the subjective nature of the wording is definitely something we'll consider.

Beer Trader

We'll return ISO:FT (Beer Only) to its original order thread by last replied to.

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Any possibility that the view order can be an individually controlled option? Sometimes it's nice to see what new trades are being posted, rather than the trades that are being talked about the most. (I know moderation will help will help keep the discussions positive, but changing the sort order would still be nice).

Beer Trader

I really think it should just be positive or negative.

Either give somebody props or explain the negatives.

Personally, think people are going to be rightfully pissed off when they are given a neutral for a mediocre packing job (but the bottles still made it) or somebody didn't include extras (even though they were not discussed and shouldn't be expected)

I believe adding the neutral is going to cause problems the the bros and coming mods will have to police... So why even other giving people the option.

Beer Trader

I like the idea of having feedback, but I agree it should be more clear cut, either positive or negative. And also, how does it make sense for it to be cumulative and not an average? Someone could have 100 amazing trades after having 50 horrible trades, and a feedback of 100 would still look good on the surface? Whereas having a 1.33 Average brings more questions from a potential trader.